Experiencing mental health crisis during Postdoc – What’s next

Dear friends,

This is my first post. I am a postdoc working in the US. I got my PhD in developmental psychology from a top university in Asia. This is my third year after graduation, and I have worked at three different US universities. I have decent research output but am not a superstar (7 first-author papers and a total of 19 publications in reputable journals, such as Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Contemporary Educational Psychology).

This year, I started my first serious AP search in March after my current institution disappointed me (I originally planned to pursue a career as a research professor here). However, I am really burned out at the moment and have had a problem falling asleep recently. I think the reason why I work in the field is just because I want to do something that could be meaningful and benefit the children in need.

Here is a list of the things I like about academia:

• Work on the topics that I care about (sometimes at least)
• Organizing my thoughts, testing out ideas and making arguments
• Intellectual dialogue with my fellow co-workers
• Since I work in non-lab settings, I can meet people and learn about their experience
• I do not have a ton of teaching experience, but designing classroom experience is fun
• Advocating for children from marginalized communities

Here is a list of the things I dislike about academia:

• Fear if I will ever get a relatively stable position, especially with the visa pressure
• Publish or Perish dilemma that makes the work that is important but not popular unattractive
• The feeling of quilt when I do not work during weekends and evening
• Arrogant people who have no real interest in meaningful conversation (about 30% of the senior people I meet)

I could choose to go back to my home country, but the research world is really corrupted, and I do not see any chance of making a meaningful impact except through publication. My age/gender is also discriminated against (my undergraduate degree is not in this field, and I changed to psychology due to my passion for the subject, so I am a couple of years older than “typical” candidates back in my home country).

I think I have a good chance of getting another postdoc somewhere (I had two pretty good interviews), but this is starting to feel like a dead end. Do you have any suggestions for me?